Can I boot a PC into XP Pro from a NAS Box?

[Pealy]

Simple question you'd think but I've failed to find any real info. Maybe I'm asking too much but I'd just like my PC to use the NAS drive instead of its local HD to run Windows XP Pro, is this possible? Is it advisable, will it run like a three-legged dog? Any links to any help, I've no idea what's possible with network booting.

[DR]

If you use eSATA then yes

[nichomach]

Which'd make it more SAN than NAS...

You can't really do it over a network connection; you can add more storage that's directly accessible like a local disk over a network connection, but you need some fairly intricate stuff to do it (it comes in handy for things like virtualised storage). Unfortunately, you need the OS to boot locally before the drivers get loaded to address your SAN, and even then, you're talking about enterprise level kit used on servers, not desktops.

[Pealy]

Sounds complicated so i reckon i'll stick to a local disk. Thanks for the comments though

[arthurleung]

May be something like a pointer to tell windows to boot from network (e.g. USB stick)

[directhex]

iSCSI!